Payoff: Feds to increase “risk payments” to insurers in return for un-canceling plans

posted at 2:51 pm on November 26, 2013 by Allahpundit

We all know about the “risk corridor” at this point, yes? Designed to spread the risk of budget overruns among insurers, it could end up as a mechanism for a federal bailout of the industry if the ObamaCare exchange risk pool ends up being much older and sicker than everyone expects. When King Barack declared that he’d allow insurers to un-cancel old plans, notwithstanding what the ObamaCare statute has to say about it, he increased the odds of that bailout being necessary by allowing healthy people to leave the exchange risk pool (temporarily) and revert to their old, cheaper coverage. That means less revenue for insurers, which of course makes budget overruns for the exchange plans more likely. How could O possibly make it up to them?

You know how. A day after Obama announced his “fix” that doesn’t actually fix anything, CMS sent a letter to insurers reassuring them that the agency would “explore ways to modify the risk corridor program final rules to provide additional assistance.” Translation: The feds are going to shovel a little extra taxpayer money their way to cover the extra cost imposed by O’s buck-passing, ass-covering, eleventh-hour attempt to keep his “if you like your plan” promise after all. And now, here it is:

The U.S. government has issued a proposal that would likely increase risk payments in 2014 to health insurers offering plans on the Obamacare exchanges after the companies complained a recent policy change allowing people to keep their insurance policies had changed the financial equation.

The rule, published on Monday in the Federal Register, lowered the threshold at which risk payments kick in for the sickest health plan members. The government proposed paying insurers 80 percent of claims greater than $45,000 in 2014. Previously the lower limit was $60,000…

In addition, the government has proposed a state-specific adjustment for risk payments based on how many people in the state extend their current polices, Citibank analyst Carl McDonald explained in a research note.

Insurers thought they’d have enough profit flowing in from healthy people who’d been forced onto the exchanges that they wouldn’t need federal help in paying off claims below 60 grand. Thanks to Obama’s need to protect himself and his party politically, that calculation has now changed — and your money will make up the difference. If you’re one of the lucky few million who’s received a cancellation notice this year, that means you’re one of the law’s “losers” twice over. Happy Thanksgiving.

Oh, almost forgot: The feds don’t have a way of transmitting these individual risk payments to insurers yet because … that part of the ObamaCare website hasn’t been built yet:

Beyond the troubles with enrollment forms, which have been evident since the marketplace opened on Oct. 1, insurers are anticipating problems if IT workers from the government and outside contractors cannot soon build other parts of the online system that are running behind schedule.

For instance, starting in mid-December, the government and each participating insurance company are supposed to perform a monthly “reconciliation,” to make sure that each side has the same list of new customers, the benefits chosen by the consumers and the government subsidies for which they qualify. That feature of the online system, however, has not been built, according to people close to the industry and government officials.

Nor can the system handle another feature, scheduled to be ready when health plans take effect on Jan. 1, in which insurers are to be paid extra government money, through a method known as “risk corridors,” if their new customers are old and require expensive medical care. “It’s not built, let alone tested,” the industry official said.

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This would be a better system if only the ‘rats could have it they way they feel it should be: A few lab-coated guys sitting behind desks on the train offload ramp pointing either left or right to each person who stumbles from the cattle cars.

Show of hands: Who’s not-so-secretly enjoying watching the insurance industry learn what it means to partner with Barack Obama?

I don’t know. This schadenfreude is becoming rather expensive for us taxpayers. BTW, does Obama even have the authority to increase the size of the bailout to insurers? I know, he has no regard for the Constitution, but when it comes to appropriating taxpayer money in this way, doesn’t he have to go through Congress?

Show of hands: Who’s not-so-secretly enjoying watching the insurance industry learn what it means to partner with Barack Obama?

When you get in bed with a flea-infested dog, don’t be surprised to learn you’ve now got fleas.

Designed to spread the risk of budget overruns among insurers, it could end up as a mechanism for a federal bailout of the industry if the ObamaCare exchange risk pool ends up being much older and sicker than everyone expects.

To Obama, it’s a small price to pay for control of 1/6th of the national economy. The ends justifies the means.

Who’s not-so-secretly enjoying watching the insurance industry learn what it means to partner with Barack Obama?

That’s not what I take away from you post. I’m scared that they will create a institutionalized yearly bailout of the insurance companies in order to ameliorate the pain caused by the ACA. And it will work – the “folks” will go along with this – in the name of bipartisanship and fixing what is broken because we can’t go back to the evil old substandard plans…and because the opposition, the GOPe, has given in. And because there will be a huge new welfare program that no one has to pay for. Nope, I’m not enjoying this latest bit of crony capitalism.

Ok, does anyone still think Obama will let the 2014 elections be impacted by the employer mandate?

They will simply delay it, print more money and shovel it into a mechanism to make sure there’s little/no pain felt before the election, etc.

There are no rules, folks. There’s no way in hell they are going to allow this to sour people into turning them out of power in November. Whatever it takes – delay, spending, bribery, *amnesty* to offset perturbed voters, etc. – they *will* do it.

Dan Smith, from Witchita KS, was shocked when he received his policy renewal statement from AETNA last Thursday. The letter stated his premium for 2026 would be $2,500,000,000,000. AETNA explained this enormous premium was due to the fact that he was the only one not entitled to a subsidy, and therefore all costs of medical insurance for the country had to come from somewhere.

Is that what was meant by “THE FIX IS IN”. Where is all this money coming from. Congress didn’t approve it. I can find no none not any reporting on the money except what WBAL in Baltimore said about the $130,000 to the Ravens. Something funny is going on when the Government and the pet media hide it.

Why did we have to pass it to see what’s in it if Obama can just change what’s in it at will and on whim?

Adjoran on November 26, 2013 at 3:19 PM

If Obama was an empty vessel into which people poured their hopes and dreams, then laws are Obama’s empty vessel, into which he pours … whatever he wants. Besides, he’s Obama, who loves us, and has a wonderful plan for our lives. You can have total and complete faith in him that he’ll do what’s right, and not let anyone fall through the cracks. Until the country becomes one huge crack. Then he can blame that on the racist Republicans.

Is anyone suprised by this? The proggies have come too close to their dream, after 100 years of hard work, to walk away from it now. They will not allow this to slip away, regardless of things like morality, laws or the constitution.

[I was going to say “they will not allow this to fail…”, but actually, “failure” in any rational, objective sense, is not a concern to them, only that they have taken, and retain, control.]

I’m pretty sure we’re going to see more, and worse, actions to shore up this and all of the other bogus policies that the regime has installed.

What will happen when someone insured on a plan not deemed compliant under Obamacare but allowed to be bought under the political “fix”, sues the insurance provider for not covering their substance abuse problem? Or birth control? Or when an exam unearths some condition not covered under the current “bad-apple” plan, but would otherwise be under an Obamacare-approved plan?

RIGGING THE FUTURE: Obamacare Creates 50 New State Databases With No Function Beyond Gathering Potential Voter Information, Real or Fraudulent

“Since the passage of Obamacare, all fifty state Medicaid agencies have been forced to create a new standalone database that contains nothing besides the contact information of Medicaid applicants who used Healthcare.gov.

Some of these new databases mail out voter registration forms automatically. You cannot refuse them.

No worthwhile verification occurs before the forms are mailed. Apply for Medicaid and the form will be mailed to you, be you a verifiable citizen or Ayman al-Zawahiri on a computer in Pakistan.

Further, these new databases are accessible by groups like Organizing for Action, the reconstituted ACORN, and malevolent figures like Chris Tarango.

And no reasonable purpose exists for creating the databases besides making them available to the aforementioned Democratic activists…”

““The President has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life,” Representative Maxine Waters told Roland Martin on Monday.
“That’s going to be very, very powerful,” Waters said. “That database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it’s never been done before and whoever runs for President on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that. They’re going to go down with that database and the concerns of those people because they can’t get around it. And he’s [President Obama] been very smart. It’s very powerful what he’s leaving in place.”

If you ever needed proof that the law means nothing to Obama and the Democrats, keep track of how many times Obama has changed Obamacare, a law written and passed exclusively by Democrats, without so much as consulting congress, the sole branch of the government with the authority to make or change the law, by his will alone… and we’ve heard nothing from Democrats about this imperial president.

The LEFT has lost any platform on which to try and make the case that they are even vaguely interested in the rule of law.

If Obama was an empty vessel into which people poured their hopes and dreams, then laws are Obama’s empty vessel, into which he pours … whatever he wants. Besides, he’s Obama, who loves us, and has a wonderful plan for our lives. You can have total and complete faith in him that he’ll do what’s right, and not let anyone fall through the cracks. Until the country becomes one huge crack. Then he can blame that on the racist Republicans.

Paul-Cincy on November 26, 2013 at 3:24 PM

Talk to Marty Bashir about what I think should be poured into this particular vessel….

Show of hands: Who’s not-so-secretly enjoying watching the insurance industry learn what it means to partner with Barack Obama?

Not all insurance companies signed on to this train wreck. See NC.

Laserjock on November 26, 2013 at 3:30 PM

Furthermore, those who continually bash insurance companies for “going along” with this are being surprisingly naive about their motivations for doing so.

What were they supposed do? Not go along with it?

These aren’t stupid people. They’re smart enough to see what the Left is able to accomplish through their normal demonization campaigns. For a perfect example, see the abject wreck they made of the housing industry that began with a simple redlining lawsuit being brought by ACORN (and Obama, who worked as legal consul on the lawsuit) against Citigroup.

Now couple that with the fact that one of these same Leftists was now the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES…a man who immediately upon taking office, called a group of the most powerful businessmen in the country to a meeting where he told them that he was “the only thing standing between them and mobs with pitchforks”.

It’s all nice and good to sit around keyboards crowing about how you would have been the one to stand firmly on principle, but those who are at the helms of these businesses – businesses that affect the lives of just about every American in one way or another and who employ hundreds of thousands of people – might have had different reasoning.

Well – when does the shooting start? I mean aren’t we pretty much resolved to the fact that at some point the producers will have no other choice than to confront their oppressors. Obama is creating the data necessary to steal another election. Wonder whose side the military and state national guards will take?

We all know about the “risk corridor” at this point, yes? Designed to spread the risk of budget overruns among insurers, it could end up as a mechanism for a federal bailout of the industry if the ObamaCare exchange risk pool ends up being much older and sicker than everyone expects.

All ins. companies which stood with obama, and him, to Hell with all of you. Go under, along with all the doctors and medical device companies.

Never call anything a “subsidy” or “supplement”.

Call it “taxpayers’ fraud”. That’s what they are. YOU are defrauded by obama and the ins. companies.

If you ever needed proof that the law means nothing to Obama and the Democrats, keep track of how many times Obama has changed Obamacare, a law written and passed exclusively by Democrats, without so much as consulting congress, the sole branch of the government with the authority to make or change the law, by his will alone… and we’ve heard nothing from Democrats about this imperial president.

The LEFT has lost any platform on which to try and make the case that they are even vaguely interested in the rule of law.

Lawlessness cannot be tolerated.

thatsafactjack on November 26, 2013 at 3:38 PM

I believe that Rush was correct on his show yesterday. I don’t think the Democrats care one wit what the masses think. This has been an evolutionary process over the past century, from Woodrow Wilson until today. The elites – the academy, the wealthy – of this country have always been enamored of authoritarianism. They curried favor with both Hitler and Stalin. People like Obama, Pelosi and Reid hear the rabble of the masses but I believe they have convinced themselves that the anger will be all talk with no further organization to action or outright civil disobedience. It is correct that this whole healthcare program is simply a political program to gather information. The Democratic Party controls the bureaucracy because it has been, for the most part, the Democrat Party’s creation since Roosevelt. They are the party that never threatens its existence. These people are evil pure and simple and people like libfreeordie who troll here are their pernicious enablers.

Dan Smith, from Witchita KS, was shocked when he received his policy renewal statement from AETNA last Thursday. The letter stated his premium for 2026 would be $2,500,000,000,000. AETNA explained this enormous premium was due to the fact that he was the only one not entitled to a subsidy, and therefore all costs of medical insurance for the country had to come from somewhere.

BobMbx on November 26, 2013 at 3:21 PM

So that’s what “single-payer” means! LOL
PS – It’s nice to see that in 2025, they’ll have changed the spelling of Wichita to the way all non-Kansans think it’s spelled! ;-)

When King Barack declared that he’d allow insurers to un-cancel old plans, notwithstanding what the ObamaCare statute has to say about it, ….. AP

Remember when we had a chief executor of the law and not a tyrant?

The U.S. government has issued a proposal that would likely increase risk payments in 2014 to health insurers offering plans on the Obamacare exchanges ….

Remember when Congress had to approve funding?

The rule, published on Monday in the Federal Register, lowered the threshold at which risk payments kick in for the sickest health plan members. The government proposed paying insurers 80 percent of claims greater than $45,000 in 2014. Previously the lower limit was $60,000…

Remember when Rule by Rulings replaced Rule of Law?

No wonder Obama’s illegal alien army demands he skip the law and start issuing decrees. The barbarians are at the gates because Obama told them by his corruption he welcomes their assaults.

Does it constitute racketeering when the President breaks the law, attempts to enjoin insurance companies to break the law, and uses taxpayer money as incentive to break the law?

How many different laws and oaths of office are being broken here?

Also, if I contribute money to a cause that is openly breaking the law, am I not also culpable in helping fund a criminal enterprise at some point? As a law-abiding citizen, shouldn’t I refrain from allowing any of my money go towards aiding and abetting a criminal enterprise?

Any tax attorney’s in the house? What’s it take to make a legal case against paying taxes on such grounds? :)